The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller. J.D. Barker

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СКАЧАТЬ turned back to him.

      Bishop stood up and crossed the basement to a small table next to the washing machine. He returned to his seat, carrying a small wooden box with Porter’s Glock sitting on top. He set the gun down on the floor beside him and thumbed the latch on the box, opening the lid.

      Six eyeballs stared up at Porter from the red velvet lining inside.

      Bishop’s past victims.

      Porter looked down at the gun.

      “Eyes front,” Bishop repeated with a soft chuckle.

      This wasn’t right. Bishop always followed the same pattern. He would remove his victims’ ear, then the eyes, followed by the tongue, and mail each to the victim’s family along with a note in a white box tied off with a black string. Always. He never deviated from this. He didn’t keep trophies. He believed he was punishing the family for some wrong they committed. Twisted vigilante justice. He didn’t keep the eyes. He never kept the —

      “We’d better get started. “Bishop ran his hand over the top of the box, a loving caress, then set it down on the floor beside the gun and held the spoon up to the light.

      Porter rolled off the gurney, crying out when the metal of the handcuff tore into the flesh of his wrist, the pipe pulled back. He tried to ignore the pain and awkwardly shoved his left hand down into his right pocket to retrieve the keys while also kicking the gurney in Bishop’s direction. His fingers slipped over the keys as Bishop dodged the gurney and thrust his leg out, impacting Porter’s left shin. Porter’s leg fell out from beneath him, and he crashed down to the ground, the handcuff on his right arm catching on the pipe and yanking him hard enough to dislocate his shoulder.

      Before he could react, he felt the sting of another needle, this one at his thigh. He tried to look down, but Bishop pulled at his hair, snapping his head back.

      Consciousness began to drift away. Porter fought it, fought with all he had. He fought long enough to see the grapefruit spoon approach his left eye, long enough to feel the serrated edge cut into the tarsal plate beneath his eyeball as Bishop forced the spoon into his eye socket, long enough for —

      “Was she hot?”

      Porter jerked in his seat, a seat belt holding him back. He took in a deep breath, his head thrashing side to side, his eyes landing on Nash in the driver’s seat. “What? Who?”

      Nash smirked. “The girl from your dream. You were moaning.”

      Six eyeballs.

      Porter, still disoriented, realized he was in the passenger seat of Nash’s Chevy, an old ’72 Nova he’d picked up two months back when his prized Ford Fiesta sputtered and died on the 290 at three in the morning, forcing him to call headquarters for a ride when he couldn’t reach Porter.

      Porter looked out the window. It was coated in a thin film of road grime and ice. “Where are we?”

      “We’re on Hayes, coming up on the park,” he replied, flipping on his blinker. “Maybe you should sit this one out.”

      Porter shook his head. “I’m all right.”

      Nash made the left into Jackson Park and followed the recently plowed access road, the red and blue flashing lights bouncing off the dark trees around them. “It’s been four months, Sam. If you’re still having trouble sleeping, you should talk to someone. Doesn’t have to be me or Clair, just . . . someone.”

      “I’m all right,” Porter repeated.

      They passed a baseball field on the right, forgotten for the winter, and continued deeper into the bare trees. Up ahead there were more lights — a half dozen cars, maybe more. Four uniform patrol vehicles, an ambulance, a fire department van. Large floodlights lined the edge of the lagoon, and propane heaters littered an area roped in by yellow crime scene tape.

      Nash pulled to a stop behind the van, dropped the car into Park, and killed the engine. It sputtered twice and sounded like it was gearing up for a stellar backfire before finally going silent. Porter noted several officers staring in their direction as they climbed out of the car into the icy winter air.

      “We could have driven my car,” Porter told Nash, his boots crunching in the newly fallen snow.

      Porter owned a 2011 Dodge Charger.

      Most of their coworkers referred to the vehicle as Porter’s “midlife crisis car”— it had replaced a Toyota Camry two years back on his fiftieth birthday. Porter’s late wife, Heather, bought the sports car for him as a surprise after their Toyota was vandalized and left for dead in one of the less “police-friendly” parts of town on the South Side. Porter was first to admit sitting behind the wheel shaved a few years off his subconscious age, but mostly the car just made him smile.

      Heather had baked the key into his birthday cake, and he almost chipped a tooth when he found it.

      She led him down the steps and out in front of their apartment blindfolded, then sang “Happy Birthday” to him in a voice that had little chance of getting her on American Idol.

      Porter thought of her every time he climbed in, but it seemed fewer and fewer things reminded him of her these days, her face gradually becoming a little more fuzzy in his mind.

      “Your car is part of the problem. We always drive your car, and Connie over there spends her days rotting in my driveway. If I drive her, I’m reminded of the fact that I want to restore her. If I’m reminded of the fact that I want to restore her, I might actually get out to the garage and work on it.”

      “Connie?”

      “Cars should have a name.”

      “No, they shouldn’t. Cars shouldn’t have names, and you have no idea how to restore her . . . it . . . whatever. I think you got that beater home, and the first time you picked up a wrench you realized you wouldn’t be done in forty-three minutes like those guys on Overhaulin’,” Porter said.

      “That show is bullshit. They should tell you how long it really takes.”

      “Could be worse. At least you didn’t get hooked on HGTV and convince yourself you can flip a house in your spare time.”

      “This is true. Although, they knock those out in twenty-two minutes for a much bigger return on investment,” Nash replied. “If I did a house or two, I could pay someone to restore the car. Hey, there’s Clair —”

      They crossed under the yellow crime scene tape and made their way toward the shore of the lagoon. Clair was standing next to one of the heaters, her cell phone pressed to her ear. When she saw them, she nodded toward the shoreline, covered the microphone, and said, “We think that’s Ella Reynolds,” before returning to her call.

      Porter’s heart sank.

      Ella Reynolds was a fifteen-year-old girl who had gone missing after school near Logan Square three weeks earlier. She was last seen getting off her bus about two blocks from her home. Her parents wasted no time reporting her missing, and the Amber Alerts were running within an hour of her disappearance. Little good they did. The police hadn’t received a single worthwhile tip.

      Nash started toward the water’s edge, СКАЧАТЬ